


The Sorting Hat

by cantthinkofausername_B_Pike



Series: Carry On Countdown 2017 [8]
Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Carry On Countdown, Gen, The Sorting, so no relationships here, they're 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 08:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12883533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantthinkofausername_B_Pike/pseuds/cantthinkofausername_B_Pike
Summary: Baz's first day at Hogwarts is all a bit routine: catching the train, tormenting the Chosen One, and so on. But when he puts on the Sorting Hat, the result isn't at all what he was expecting.





	The Sorting Hat

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my sister for betaing!

_Snap!_

One moment, I’m standing in my living room, and the next, all the colors swirl around me. I feel like I can’t breathe. After an eternity (or was it only a few seconds?) of feeling like I’m traveling through space without a spacesuit, the colors swirl the other way around and form King’s Cross Station.

Father has always insisted we Apparate when we travel. _Floo powder is undignified_ , he’s informed me more times than I can remember. Daphne lets us use Floo powder when Father isn’t around. She says it’s safer. Privately, I’m grateful. I’ve never gotten used to the way the world twists out of reality when we Apparate. I hate that feeling.

Wide-eyed, I try to see as much of King’s Cross as I can. I’m trying to soak it all in. This is the most exciting day of my life – I’d never been to the city before (unless you count Diagon Alley, but I don’t because we never get to see the Muggles), and it’s going to be my first day at Hogwarts! I already know I’m going to be Slytherin. All my family has been, and it runs in families. So instead of looking forward to the Sorting, I focus on seeing as much of the world as I can.

There are Muggles everywhere. I’ve never seen Muggles before; I’ve never been anywhere that wasn’t the manor in Hampshire, where the neighbors are magical, and to play with my friends while Father is in meetings with the Families. Everyone here is so busy, they’re pushing their carts across the platform and bumping into each other with bags and purses. There’s a baby crying somewhere, but I can’t see where. It’s all just so _much_. 

Father briskly walks toward the barrier between platforms nine and ten. I hurry so I don’t lose him in the crowd. I’ve never been around this many people at once before. I stare as he determinedly walks into the barrier and disappears. Even though he told me what will happen, and I’ve seen magic all my life, there’s still _something_ about a person walking through a wall like it isn’t even there.

_I’m not going to get left behind_ , I think, so I walk towards the barrier maybe a little faster than is advisable. I’m half running when I come out the other side. The smoke from the train billows in huge gray clouds, obscuring half of the platform. 

I stop and take a breath. These are the people I’m going to be spending the next seven years with, and I will not look like an awestruck little kid. I’m too old for that. I take all the wonder filling up my chest and lock it away. Or, I try. The most I manage is to keep it off my face.

“Here you are.” Father appears by my side. I turn to face him as he continues. “Hogwarts is a privilege, Basilton. Have fun, and make me proud. You remember your task, yes?” He doesn’t wait for me to nod. “This is extremely important.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. The Families have assigned me to spy on the Chosen One, since he’ll be in my year at school. I don’t know why they think we’ll spend any time together, as he will be in Gryffindor (all Chosen Ones are, I think it’s a criteria) and I will not. Everyone knows Gryffindor and Slytherin are rival houses, anyway. But Father says it’s important, and that it will help with their mission, so I’ll do it.

He still hasn’t stopped talking. I don’t know why I’d pictured a fond farewell, but I’d certainly expected something more than a never-ending list of rules and an often-repeated speech on how horrible the Mage is. “Have a good year, Basilton,” he concludes. After the most awkward hug in the history of awkward hugs, I grab my luggage and climb onto the train. I don’t look as the train pulls away from the station.

 

***

 

Once I’m on the train, I realize I don’t know where to go. I should probably find Dev and Niall and find a compartment, but if I’m going to spy on the Chosen One shouldn’t I find him? And how can I do that when I don’t even know what he looks like?

“Oi! Baz!” I hear Niall yelling down the corridor at me. 

I turn to reply when Dev’s hand claps me on the shoulder. “What’re you standing here for? You look like an absolute loon.”

“Waiting for you sorry lot, of course. Now come on, let’s go grab a seat,” I say, my tone making their status expressly clear. Dev and Niall have never had any problem being my minions (I don’t think they’re intelligent enough to realize they are minions) and that doesn’t change now. They fall into step behind me. I don’t say what I want to, that I’m lost and this is maybe a little too much for me, that maybe I want to make my own friends.

We’re walking down the corridor when Dev abruptly stops. I turn and glare at him, but he’s too busy looking in the window of the compartment to his left to see. “Isn’t that the Chosen One?” He asks.

This is my place to reply, _yes, let’s make sure he knows his place_. But I don’t. For some reason, it feels fundamentally wrong.

Niall does it for me. “Let’s give him the old Hogwarts welcome.” He says it like he means ‘Let’s go shove his head down a toilet,’ and I have no doubt that he does.

I open the door to their compartment, and it falls silent. I can feel the power radiating off him from feet away. For the Chosen One, he doesn’t look like much. He’s thin – too thin, almost pinched. His hair is cropped short, and his clothes are a size or two too large. He’s tossing a small red ball in the air and catching it again almost unconsciously.

“Hi! Who are you?” He asks after a second of staring at us in stunned silence. “I’m Simon, and this is Penny,” he points at the girl with dark skin and violently purple hair, and who is reading the largest book I've ever seen, “and Agatha.” He nods to the blond girl on the other bench. Everything about her is polished, like a mask.

It looks like he might continue rambling, so I cut him off. “Simon Snow?” I drawl, seemingly uninterested. 

“Um, yeah?” He says, nerves making it a question.

I can see why he’s nervous. Beside me, Dev and Niall are doing their best to appear hulking and threatening. While I privately think they look ridiculous, Snow and the girls seem to be properly intimidated. “I’m Baz Pitch. This is Dev and Niall. We’re here to make sure you lot understand who’s in charge at Hogwarts.”

Snow somehow doesn’t get it. “Who?”

“ _Me_ , you imbecile.”

“You’re a first year though, same as me.” 

“For the Mage’s Heir, you really are quite dense, aren’t you?” I sigh. “The Pitches rule this school. So if I were you…” I trail off, letting him fill in the rest of the sentence as he sees fit. As the occupants of the compartment are staring at me wide-eyed, I’m satisfied I’ve done my job. “Come on boys, let’s go.” I walk away, trusting that Dev and Niall will follow me. They always do. 

It probably would have been easier to spy on Snow if I had pretended to make friends with him, I think. Oh well. It’s too late now, and besides, I never did think I was that good of an actor.

 

***

 

The sun has set by the time the train arrives, so we’re ferried across the lake in darkness. I’m pretty sure they do this whole boat ride thing to make the first impression of Hogwarts as forbidding and terrifying as possible for the first years. It works. Most of the other kids are gaping at the castle, wide-eyed. Privately, I’m impressed, but they look like frogs with their mouths open like that, so I refrain. I hear the Chosen One whispering “Wow. Oh, _wow_ ,” from a nearby boat, and I roll my eyes.

Lightning crackles across the sky, and I curl in on myself a little. I don’t want to get rained on. (It’s not because the noise of the thunder frightens me. That only happens to babies.) Luckily, we make it inside the castle just before the sky gives out. I glance behind me, and I can barely see the bank of the lake through the rain. I shudder involuntarily.

“First years!” A tall, imposing teacher shouts over the din. “First years!” A hush falls over us. “This is the Sorting,” she begins, and I tune her out. I know how the Sorting works. I’m not stupid. Instead, I focus on taking in every detail of the castle. No amount of pictures can capture how beautiful it is here.

Eventually, the teacher stops talking, and the students hurry to line up in alphabetical order. Most of them look terrified. I would be too, I suppose, if I didn’t already know where I will end up. I don’t even have to act bored as the Sorting Hat calls out a House for each new student. That girl the Chosen One was sitting with (Bunce?) gets Gryffindor, and I’m surprised. She seemed like a Ravenclaw to me. 

When it’s finally my turn, I stroll over to the stool, the picture of confidence, and place the Hat on my head.

“Lots of ambition,” a voice speaks directly into my ear.

I roll my eyes, even though I know the hat can’t see it.

“Insolent. Ought to put you in Slytherin. You’d do well there.”

“That’s not what you’re going to do?” I’m curious, there was never a universe where I was anything other than Slytherin. But now, I understand why everyone in the line looked like they were about to pass out from nerves. The Hat is looking into my soul, and I don’t know what it sees.

“Selfless. Buried deep, but strong. Brave. Gryffindor could fit you.”

“Not Gryffindor! The Chosen One is going to be there. Father wouldn’t be able to stand it.” 

“You can’t avoid the Mage and his Heir forever, Basilton,” the Hat says with what sounds like amusement. 

“Watch me.”

“Determination. There’s Gryffindor in you, but at the end of the day, the House that will serve you best is…

**HUFFLEPUFF!** ”

I hear the Hat shout the last word to the hall, and I’ve never been so embarrassed. And to think I worried about being placed in Gryffindor only minutes, _seconds_ , ago. 

I take off the Hat, replace it on the stool, and trudge over to the cheering Hufflepuff table. The seated Hufflepuffs are clapping and cheering like this is some sort of an accomplishment. This is the worst day of my life. Of all the Houses, I had to be Sorted into the one that values friendship and hard work? Hufflepuff is the loser house. 

The rest of the Sorting passes in a haze of embarrassment and anger. I vaguely see the Mage’s Heir be welcomed at the Gryffindor table by loud cheering. No surprise there. That blond girl Snow was with, whose name I can’t be bothered to remember, gets Slytherin. How completely unfair.

The Hufflepuff table tucks into dinner once the Sorting is over. Everyone is smiling, laughing, talking with friends. Except me. I’m going to have a lot to get used to. _Hufflepuff._ I still can’t believe it.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel the need to clarify: I have no problem with Hufflepuffs. They're great. Baz, however, is a spoiled child with prejudices.


End file.
